FLY ME TO THE WHALES – In 2007, Patrick Ramage of Barnstable Village, global whale program director of the International Fund for Animal Welfare, flew to a conference in Anchorage, Alaska, in a Cape Air plane that was painted with images of humpback whales. The flight made several stops to pick up children’s drawings of the mammals for Ramage to distribute to conference delegates.

Globetrotting Patrick Ramage relishes ties to village

Like many a northsider before him, Patrick Ramage of Barnstable Village travels the globe for whales. But he’s not looking to harpoon them. He’s looking to save them. “My career has been a bit of a careen,” he said in a conference room in the world headquarters of the International Fund for Animal Welfare in Yarmouthport. He had brought his guest coffee from Nirvana in the village, where he said that he had run into town councilor Ann Canedy. Director of IFAW’s Global Whale Program, Ramage came to his work by a path as wide as the marine mammals’ salty environment. “I was an Army brat,” he explained, and added, “and it was a tumbleweed existence. I lived in Europe as a child and had 23 homes by the time I was 21.” As an adult, he joined the Army himself, as a German/Russian linguist in intelligence. Upon his discharge in 1986, he moved to Washington, D.C., where he served in various public affairs, environmental, and consumer policy positions until in 1992, he became U.S. director of the Global Legislators Organization for a Balanced Environment (GLOBE), where he worked with governments in the U.S., Japan, western Europe, and Russia. In 1996, IFAW recruited him to be its director of public affairs. “It was an incredible professional opportunity,” he recalled, “rare because it drew on both my international background and my interest in conservation.” In 2007 came the chance to head IFAW’s whale program. Others specialize in seals; companion animals (cats and dogs); elephants; emergency relief; and wildlife rehabilitation. He and the whales make a good match, he said, because “my vacations were always by the sea.” Ramage said that he spends about 30 to 40 percent of his work time on the road, often in Australia or Japan. In the latter country, he said, he is working to get the culture to exchange whale hunting to whale watching and is organizing a December conference there toward that goal. “In Japan,” he said, “the younger generation has lost interest in eating whales…Whaling is unavoidably cruel and has no place in the 21st century.” He described the present government of Japan as “more whale-friendly” than its predecessors. To get Japan, Iceland, and Norway, the last three countries to practice whale hunting, excited about whale watches, he has invited delegations to the U.S. to experience boat rides such as the Hyannis Whale Watch out of Barnstable Harbor. For some of these visitors, he said, the encounter with the marine mammals “can be life-altering for them.” Whales seem to capture the imaginations of people wherever they live, said Ramage, adding with a smile, “There’s even been a Whale Day in New Mexico.” Ramage said that he is proud of the United States’ leadership in saving the whales: “Imagine – from Yankee whaling to world leadership in whale-watching,” he mused, as he noted the irony of the location of IFAW’s world headquarters so near what was the epicenter of the whaling industry. Ramage’s work is not all serious. IFAW once hired four Elvis impersonators to sing whale-friendly lyrics to “Don’t Be Cruel.” He added, “I rented a costume, too.” Ramage said that he, his wife, and their three children love living in Barnstable Village. ”The rhythm of our lives is oriented toward the cycle of the Christmas Stroll and the Fourth of July parade,” he said, and he even does the New Year’s Day swim. “This is our children’s psychological landscape,” he said of the village. And when he returns from one of his frequent trips, he said, “there’s nothing like coming home to idyllic Barnstable Village. Within hours I’m at Sandy Neck to watch the sun go down and the moon come up.”

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